Last Kreines Metaphilosophy

7/31/2019 Last Kreines Metaphilosophy

1/41

1

Learning From Hegel What Philosophy is All About:For the Metaphysics of Reason and Against the Priority ofSemantics1

Jim [email protected]

DRAFT, PLEASE DO NOT CITE, comments welcome

When it comes to Hegel, disagreement begins with even the most basic questions.

Recent debates have focused specifically on so-called non-metaphysical

interpretations, which raise the most basic question of all: what is Hegels philosophy

about?

And yet it is not as clear as it should be what of philosophical substance is at stake

in these Hegel debates, if anything. For it is difficult state what is at issue in a manner

that would be accepted by opposing sides. As Redding puts it, it is still not clear which

issues dividing them are substantive and which are ultimately verbal.2 Certainly the

opposing sides make characteristic claims. Metaphysical interpreters say that Hegels

ambitious goalsfor example, to give an account of the absoluteclearly express

metaphysical ambitions.3 Non-metaphysical interpreters argue that they have a trump

card in a superior ability to make sense of Hegels aim of engaging philosophically with

Kants critique of metaphysics, rather than merely assuming the viability of a project

1I want to thank Michela Bordignon, Richard Boyd, Paul Hurley, Luca Illetterati, Daniel Mornier, Dean Moyar,

Jamila Mascat, Federico Orsini, Peter Thielke and Paolo Vinci, the works in progress group of the Claremontphilosophy departments, and audiences at Universit degli Studi di Padova and Sapienza - Universit di Roma.

2Ibid.

3e.g. Beiser 2005, ch. 3.


2/41

2

which Kant has specifically argues is hopeless.4 But insofar as this disagreement is

about whether Hegel pursues metaphysics, differences may simply spring from

different uses of that term. True, non-metaphysical interpreters more specifically

compare Hegels view with anti-realism, internal realism, or other rejections of

metaphysical realism or realism.5 But philosophical disagreements about realism

are a paradigm case of the lack of agreement between opponents on the issues at stake:

anti-realists tend to see a dispute fundamentally in semantics concerning reference and

the truth predicate, realists a dispute fundamentally in metaphysics or ontology

concerning what exists.6 So if the Hegel debates concern whether Hegel is realist or

anti-realist, then this is again cause to worry whether the sides are talking past one

another. Further, some who once called their view non-metaphysical now argue thatthis label produces misunderstanding of the approach, and prefer the label post-

Kantian,7 emphasizing Hegels engagement with Kant. But my view requires me to

contest the implication of the new label. For I argue that my metaphysical approach is a

better way to understand Hegels philosophical engagement with Kant. And so the

debate seems drawn ever farther toward debate about labels, and away from philosophy.

But I will argue here that there is a surprising kind of philosophical substance to

the debates about Hegel. For they expose a crucial philosophical question whose import

is otherwise easy to miss: the question of metaphilosophy. The question is, what is

philosophy itself most fundamentally about? Or, what issues are most fundamental in

philosophy?

Thinking in terms of metaphilosophy, in this sense, we will be able characterize the

debate in substantively philosophical terms that all parties should accept. What

distinguishes non-metaphysical interpretations is that they see in Hegel a

commitment to taking as fundamental the project of considering our cognition in order

4E.g. Pippin 1989, 7.

5See the citations below from Pippin 1989 on realism.

6See e.g. Devitt 1991.

7E.g. Pinkard 1999, 230.


3/41

3

to construct an account in epistemology of the possibility of knowledge and/or an

account in semantics of the possibility of meaningful thought (section 1). This need not

mean a renunciation of all involvement in metaphysics in any and all senses. But it does

mean that the only legitimate metaphysics would be one that is shaped so as to avoid

conflict with, and to play a role in or rest upon the more fundamental project in

epistemology and/or semantics. If the emphasis is specifically on the fundamentality of

accounting for the possibility of knowledge, then we could mark this priority by

referring to an epistemology-first metaphilosophy. If the emphasis is rather on

accounting for the possibility ofmeaningfulthought, cognition or experience, then we

can call it a semantics-first metaphilosophy.8 Insofar as both take as prior

consideration of our own cognition and its capacities, we could speak more generally of

a cognition-first metaphilosophy. Insofar as the so-called non-metaphysical readings

of Hegel ultimately will emphasize meaning, I will generally call them semantics-first

interpretations of Hegel.

But I reject all forms of epistemology- or semantics-first metaphilosophy. And I

think that Hegel rejects them too. Articulating a substantial and successful alternative,

however, requires care with the term metaphysics. Some people may begin by thinking

that philosophy is fundamentally concerned with problems about meaningful thought

about or knowledge of an independent world. They will then tend to take metaphysicsto assume that some things are absolutelyindependent of our perspective, and that we

can know them; they will tend to take metaphysics to be inquiry into the absolutely

perspective-independent. But we can think of metaphysics differently, and must if we

are to understand Hegel (section 2). We need not think of what I call the metaphysics

of perspective-independence. We should think instead in terms of what I call the

metaphysics of reason. Metaphysical inquiry, in this sense, is not founded on any

special notion of, or assumptions about, perspective-independence. It is founded instead

on the basic notion of one thing being any kind ofreason for another, or because of

another. For example, a monist metaphysics (in this sense) would hold that the whole of

everything is the reason for the existence and natures of the parts; an atomist

8It might be better to say that such accounts would be part of meta-semantics, but for the sake of concision I

will use the term semantics.


4/41

4

metaphysics would hold the reverse. Perhaps inquiry into reasons, in this sense, is also

what is meant when AristotlesMetaphysics specifies its concern with primary causes

and principles. But my aim here is not just to compare, but to explain this kind of

metaphysics and its lasting philosophical appeal in independently accessible terms.

The Hegel debates, then, concern what issues are fundamental. Some say that

Hegels fundamental project is to account for the possibility of knowledge and,

especially, for the possibility of meaningful thought, where the only sense in which

Hegel might be engaged in metaphysics would be one that flows from and is shaped by

the more fundamental engagement with epistemology and semantics. My alternative is

the reverse: Hegels project is fundamentally within the metaphysics of reason.

But my opponents will still take themselves to have a trump card when it comes to

making sense of Hegels philosophical engagement with Kants critique of metaphysics.Matching this trump card requires distinguishing two stands of Kants critique. One

strand is an epistemology-first critique, arguing that philosophy must begin by

considering our cognition and constructing an account of the conditions of the

possibility of knowledge, which will then show our cognition to be unfit for the projects

pursued by pre-Kantian metaphysicians. But Kants critique would be weaker if it

merely attacked metaphysics from the foreign territory of epistemology. It is stronger

insofar as there is another strand: Kant also attacks metaphysics from within, or argues

that it contradicts itself from within. That is the argument of the Transcendental

Dialectic, which makes clear that Kants most immediate interest and target is the

metaphysics of reason, rather than the metaphysics of perspective-independence

(section 3).

I can then match my opponents trump card. They see Hegels basic project as

carrying yet further Kants attempt to account for the conditions of the possibility of

knowledge and meaningful cognition in the Transcendental Dialectic from the first

Critique, putting this to a different and more radically anti-skeptical end. But I too read

Hegel as carrying Kantian considerations yet further. I read Hegels basic project as

carrying further Kants consideration of reason and metaphysics in the Transcendental

Dialectic, putting this to a different and more metaphysically constructive end (section

4).


5/41

5

Once the metaphysics of reason approach to Hegel is clear, and the trump card

matched, the advantages are easy to see. For it is then easy to see that Hegel himself

argues powerfully against the claim that philosophy must first or most fundamentally

set aside metaphysics and consider instead cognition in order to construct of accounts of

our cognitive capacities (section 5). Further, this is not bad news for attempts to relate

Hegel to contemporary analytic philosophy; my approach does just as well establishing

such relations. And, finally, Hegels metaphysics of reason can help us to better

understand the philosophical issues themselves. Of course, there is no space here to

definitively defend a comprehensive interpretation of Hegel, let alone a comprehensive

metaphilosophy. But we can use these terms to better appreciate the underlying terrain

on which wars in philosophy are still fought today. In that sense, we can learn

something important from Hegel with respect to the question of what philosophy itselfis all about.

1. Metaphilosophical Diagnosis of the Hegel Debates

I begin by giving the so-called non-metaphysical story about Hegels engagement

with Kant a sympathetic formulation, in order to see how it depends on semantics-

first metaphilosophy. So imagine someonecall her SF for semantics-firsttelling

the basic story in three steps:SF:First,pre-Kantian philosophers have discussed things they thought we could

know about. It doesnt matter what thingscall them X. But Kant argues that they

have all taken some X to be independent of our knowledge or cognition, something

which can in turn explain the possibility of our knowledge and cognition, and

something which sets the standard to which our knowledge and cognition is

responsible. In other words, they take the standard to be a way of grasping of X in its

independence of our point of viewsomething like a Gods eye view. This package of

pre-critical views is called metaphysical realism or just realism.9

9Here non-metaphysical interpreters of Hegel can follow non-metaphysical interpreters of Kant; see e.g.

Allisons explanation of Kant as fundamentally gathering together all previous philosophy as realismcommitted to a theocentric model of knowledge, and rejecting it all (1983, 19ff.).


6/41

6

I should interject in my own voice that SF here uses the term realism to refer to a

view about the explanation of the possibility of knowledge and its standard; it is not at

base a claim about the existence of a world independent of us. I will continue to use it in

SFs way, since I have no special need of any use of the term. She continues:

SF: Second, Kant rejectsrealism in this sense, taking it to guarantee

skepticism, because we could never know how things would look from a Gods eye

view. Kants alternative is reflection on our own cognition, aiming to demonstrate that

we fix from within a distinction between the subjective and the objectivenow in a

sense of objective that is internal to our cognition, and opposed to a pre-critical sense

of absolute independence from us. So Kants philosophy parallels 20th century

rejections of metaphysical realism in favor of a kind of internal realism.

I should interject again that I dont seek to defend this reading of Kant, but only totell this one kind of story about Kant and Hegel, which continues:

SF: Third,Hegel argues that Kant should have gone farther. Kant should have

taken his argument in epistemology, concerning the possibility of knowledge, and

extended it more consistently also to semantics, concerning the possibility of

meaningful thought. More specifically, Kant claims that we cannot have knowledge of

things as they are in themselves. But just as Kant admits that we cannot explain the

possibility of knowledge of such things supposed to be absolutely perspective-

independent, Hegel argues that we cannot even explain the possibility of meaningful

thought about them. To assume otherwise would be to retain a semantic version of the

same realism rejected in epistemology. To complete the parallel with the above, the

conclusion is that we can meaningfully refer to an objective world only insofar as we

fix from within our cognition a distinction between the subjective and the objective

again in a sense of objective that is internal rather than the pre-critical sense of

absolute perspective-independence. So we must give up as meaningless claims about

absolutely independent things in themselves, even Kants claims to be ignorant of

them.

That is the basic non-metaphysical story. Redding has a nice encapsulation of the

idea that the Hegelian worry about Kant is that he should apply his epistemological

points more completely to semantics:


7/41

7

Kants combination of conceivability but unknowability seems to take awaywith the one hand a quasi-divine epistemic take on the world the so-calledGods-eye view only to return something like a semantic version of it withthe other (2007, 222)

McDowells version of Hegel's Idealism as Radicalization of Kant takes its departure

(2001, 527) from Pippins work. And the crucial elements of recent versions generally do

stem from PippinsHegels Idealism. The story there is as follows:

RP:Hegels basic project focuses on meaning or intelligibility in the sense of

considering the conditions of the possibility of any intelligible experience of an object.

Hegels view is built around acceptance, specifically, of Kants claim about the

spontaneity and reflexivity of any intelligible experience of an object (1989, 12). This

key claim is a revolt against realism, in that the spontaneity of our cognition explains

the possibility of intelligible experience, rather than the objects themselves. Realism

generally supports skepticism, or realist skeptical doubts (e.g. p. 107).Even Kants

own thing in itself skepticism (p. 6) retains and rests on a residual realism which

should, more consistently, be eliminated. Hegel rejects all realism, undercutting realist

skepticism, in an attempt to reach the conclusion that our own knowledge is second to

no other intelligible standard, and so is absolute (p. 94).

It is easy to see why some who tell this story are rethinking the non-metaphysical

label. For the point is not that Hegel limits himself to only modest knowledge about our

own cognition as opposed to knowledge of reality. Rather, in Hegels hands, Kantian

reflection on the necessary conditions of meaning and knowledge yields knowledge of

realityknowledge that is not in any intelligible respect limited or less than absolute.10

So the idea is that Hegel is an anti-realist, but of a radically anti-skeptical variety. And

ifmetaphysics just means inquiry into what there is, then the point is that Hegels

philosophy comes to metaphysical conclusions in that sense.

But, by the same token, this story has oriented its understanding of Hegel around a

debate whose philosophical substance can be elusive. If all sides could agree about

Hegels conclusions are metaphysical, depending on how that term is used, then there

is a threat that the debate is merely verbal. Further, attempting to locate Hegel relative

10Redding 2009, 7.


8/41

8

to disagreements about anti-realism, brings us to disagreements facing the same threat:

Realists will argue that anti-realism simply must be a form of skepticism, social

constructivism, or some other denial of objectivity. Anti-skeptical anti-realists will

answer that this is a misunderstanding, because their view is anti-skeptical; they will

counter-charge that realists conceive of objectivity in a manner that is incoherent.

Realists will respond that they do not hold the incoherent conception attributed to them.

Anti-realists will charge that realists assume an objectionable account of the truth

predicate in semantics. Realists will respond that the debate is not about semantics but

about what exists. Etc. Those of us not involved in the fray will naturally wonder

whether there can be a substantive philosophical debate if the sides so entirely fail to

agree about what is being debated.

Fortunately, I need not try to clarify the opposing positions on the object level ofdebates about anti-realism. For my view is that it is a mistake to read Hegel as if his

basic project were to take any stand in anything like a debate about anti-realism. For my

purposes, the most important feature of the story above about Kant and Hegel is the

dependence on a view at the meta-level, or a metaphilosophy. The dependence is clear if

we examine the need to argue against an opponent, rather than just tell a story. It is

clearest if we consider an especially modest sort of pre-critical metaphysiciancall him

PCM. He might say:

PCM:Look, no philosophy can explain everything. Everyone must take

something for granted. I begin with our knowledge of ordinary things, like rocks and

trees and their parts, and then I use this to address the metaphysical issues of interest

to mefor example, the question of whether these objects have indivisible atomic parts.

SF seems to think that I am thereby leaving unanswered some other question about the

possibility of knowledge of such things, or the possibility of meaningfully thinking of

them. But, if so, then these are questions that I have no interest in answering. Nor,

since we clearly can meaningfully think about trees, and most will agree that we can

know about them, do I have any need of an account of the conditions of the possibility

of such meaning and knowledge.

Now the non-metaphysical story about Kant and Hegel begins with the idea that

wherever we find such metaphysics, without a prior Kantian reflection on cognition, we

are essentially dealing with objectionably realist account of the possibility of


9/41

9

knowledge. But what could the argument be for this claim against modest PCM, who

takes no interest in and does without any account of this topic at all? As far as I can see,

there can be an argument here, but only on the basis of strong metaphilosophical claim

that the consideration of our cognition and the problem of accounting for the possibility

of knowledge is fundamental to philosophy in a way that makes it inescapable. SF, for

example, might defend herself as follows:

SF: Claims about any rocks or trees or any X presume the possibility of

knowledge of X. So such claims always raise philosophical problems about the

explanation of the possibility of this knowledge. If PCM thinks he can ignore those

issues, he is mistaken. For he is implicitly committed to some explanation of knowledge

of X. Further, such explanations can either be realist or anti-realist. But PCMs account

includes no analysis of our own cognition, only discussions of the objects of knowledge,X. So he cannot account for the possibility of knowledge in an anti-realist manner, in

terms of the features of our cognition, such as its spontaneity. So he is committed,

know it or not, to the realist view that the objects of knowledge, X, explain the

possibility of our having knowledge of them. But an explanans must be distinct from

an explanandum, or there is no real explanation. So PCM implicitly takes X to be

something independent of our cognition. And that means that PCM implicitly takes our

knowledge to be explained by a standard that is independent of our perspective

which is the realist view that will inevitably support skepticism, etc.

This is essentially an argument of the you are either with us or against us sort: no

one can be neutral, because the issue is too important, and there are only two kinds of

response. And SF will eventually turn this general line of argument against Kant as well.

We could just as well imagine a modest Kantian, who claims ignorance of things in

themselves. SF will have to argue that any such claim is committed to an account in

semantics of the possibility of meaningful thought about things in themselves. And that

any such semantics must be either realist or anti-realist. And that realism must be

rejected in semantics too, undercutting realist skeptical doubts including thing in

itself skepticism. So the arguments in what was once called non-metaphysical

readings of Hegel must depend on the metaphilosophical commitment to the

fundamentality or inescapability of issues about the possibility of knowledge and,


10/41

10

especially, meaning. And we can call this a priority of semantics or semantics-first

approach to Hegel.

Granted, there are any number of ways of developing a semantics-first approach

that could be more balanced in other respects. Consider the quietist, Q, who argues for

this view:

Q: Constructive philosophy must be avoided altogether, because it will inevitably

involve commitment to either a realist or anti-realist account of the possibility of

knowledge and meaning, and neither is acceptable.

True, this view gives priority to neither realism nor anti-realism. But the view is

still driven by a priority claim at the meta-level: issues about knowledge and meaning

are supposedly so fundamental that entanglement in one or another position on just

those issues becomes inescapable for any constructive philosophy.Or consider the defender of a seemingly balanced semantics, BS, who will say this:

BS:Hegel argues that, in order to account in semantics for the possibility of

meaningful thought, we must recognize certain ontological commitments about what

there is. So Hegel takes such ontology to be just as legitimate, for this reason, as

semantics.

But even if this results in a balance between semantics and ontology at the object-

level, what is distinctive about the philosophy here is the way it is shaped by a priority-

claim at the meta-level: ontology is legitimate only becauseand insofar as a kind of

ontology can avoid conflict with an account in semantics of the possibility of meaning,

and only because and insofar ontology shaped in this way can contribute to semantics. I

will argue that Hegels project is quite the opposite: he takes a kind metaphysics as

fundamental, discussing meaning and knowledge where these do not conflict with but

are necessary to advance the fundamentally metaphysical project; for example,

discussion of knowledge and meaning will be necessary in a metaphysical account of

what we ourselves are and how we fit into the rest of realitynot in the sense of an

account in epistemology of the conditions of the possibility of knowledge or meaning,

but rather an account in metaphysics of the ways in which knowledge and meaning

make us what we are.


11/41

11

2. Distinguishing the Metaphysics of Reason

Different understandings of metaphysics will agree that it is an inquiry into

something that is supposed to be privileged or prior, disagreeing on the relevant senses

of priority or privilege. The most minimal understanding would take metaphysics to be

inquiry into what existsor what is privileged merely insofar as it exists rather than not.

Some might prefer to call that ontology, but it makes no difference here. More

important is that those who look at philosophy through the epistemological lens of

problems concerning the possibility of knowledge of a world independent of our

perspective will tend to take metaphysics to be inquiry into whatever is privileged in

the sense of being perspective-independent. If that is right, then to read as metaphysics

any project of accounting for the absolute would be to read it as inquiry into

something supposed to be absolutely perspective-independent. But it is crucial that this

is only one way of understanding metaphysics; it is what I call the metaphysics of

perspective-independence. We can distinguish the metaphysics of reason, which

would be inquiry into whatever is privileged insofar as it is a reason for something else.

Thinking in this way, a metaphysical account of the absolute would be a very different

undertaking: inquiry into reasons that are most basic, fundamental or complete

regardless of whether those most complete reasons are in any sense more independent

of our perspective than anything else.To see what I mean by reasons, consider again this example of a recognizably

metaphysical debate: Some monists will argue that the one whole of all reality is the

reason why there are many parts and/or why the parts are as they are or do what they

do. Some atomists will take the opposite view: atomic parts are the reason why there is a

whole of everything, and why that the whole is as it is and does what it does.11 Perhaps

others would develop and defend a sense in which the whole and parts can be the

reasons for one another. But, in any case, note that the sense of reason here is not

epistemic: the question is not whether we conclude that there are parts for the reason

that we know there to be a whole, or vice versa. Further, the question here has nothing

to do with whether the whole or the parts is more independent of our perspective. It is

11Shaffer (2010) calls the former priority monism.


12/41

12

open to the monist, for example, to say that they are precisely equal in perspective-

independence; the point is that the former is prior in a different sense: the whole is the

reason why there are parts, and why they are as they are. So this inquiry need not

presuppose any special conception of perspective-independence. This is a dispute within

the metaphysics of reason.

Further, this sort of debate can be of interest to almost anyone. Anti-realists who

prefer a coherence theory of truth can take an interest in the question just as much as

those who prefer a correspondence theory of truth, those who think there is nothing

interesting to be said about the truth predicate, and those who just dont have a position

concerning these options. The metaphysics of reason in itself is not built on any of these

specific notions of truth, but by what it seeks the truth about: about what is a reason for

what.12

Similarly, imagine you hold the radically anti-skeptical form of anti-realism that

some people see in Hegel, namely: we can have knowledge of the objective world in an

internal sense; and we cannot even meaningfully or intelligibly engage with any

competing accounts of objectivity as absolute or external perspective-independence. If

you hold thatview, then it will make sense to ask you questions about the objective

world you recognize, including the question: what is the reason for what in this objective

world? And since your view is radically anti-skepticalyou have dismissed asunintelligible what you call realist skeptical doubts including Kants claim to ignorance

of things in themselvesyou will not deny the possibility of knowledge in principle of

such reasons in the objective world. So even the sort of anti-realism some see in Hegel

would not preclude engagement with the metaphysics of reason.

Perhaps some will think that metaphysics must always involve positing a

supposedly higher realm, or ground beyondthat of finite persons. But if we think in

terms of reasons, this need not be so. Questions about whether there is anything beyond

us that is a reason why we exist and are as we are would then be metaphysical questions.

Different answers would equally stake out different positions within metaphysics: yes

12Whether Hegel uses some entirely distinct conception of truth is another matter; on my view, even his

conception of truth will be driven by the metaphysics of reason, so that the truth of X will sometimes refer to akind of reason for X.


13/41

13

is the position that there is such a beyond, which I would call the metaphysics of the

beyond; no is the equally metaphysical position that there is no such thing.

Returning to Hegel, then, when I say that I prefer a metaphysical interpretation, I

mean that Hegel most fundamentally pursues inquiry into what is a reason for what. I

do notmean that Hegels basic goal is to address in any particular manner the question

of how to account for the possibility of knowledge or meaningwhether realist, anti-

realist, or whatever.

To see Hegels engagement with the metaphysics of reason, consider the initial

example the laws of nature. The natural sciences seek knowledge of what is and what is

not a law of nature. But there is a philosophical question here too: what is it to be a law

of nature? On a humean approach, a law will just be a regularity or a generalization

stating a regularity. (It is a matter of debate whether Hume himself is a humean, in

this sense.13) Anti-humeans hold that a law is something else, something which governs

events, or something responsible for which regularities hold. Recent humeans have

emphasized that theirs is a non-governing conception of laws (Beebee 2000). For if

laws are just regularities, then they more summarize than govern events.

Hegel clearly holds that the laws of nature are the reason for the events that fall

under them, or that laws govern. Consider the Lectures on the History of Philosophy,

explaining how an idea of Anaxagoras provides the basis for further progress inphilosophy:

Anaxagoras was the first to enunciate the doctrine that understandinggenerally, or reason, governs the world The movement of the solar system isgoverned by unalterable laws; these laws are its reason. But neither the sun northe planets which revolve around it are conscious of them. It is man whoabstracts the laws from empirical reality and acquires knowledge of them. Anyidea of this kind, that there is reason in nature or that it is governed byunalterable universal laws, does not strike us as in any way strange (LPH12:23/34)

And Hegel notes how philosophy builds on the basic idea about reason or governing.Plato builds on it, even while rejecting the way in which Anaxagoras sought reasons

merely in Atmosphere, Ether, Water, and the like. Indeed, Hegel here treats

13The debate about whether Hume has a regularity theory focuses more specifically on causality than laws; see

Winkler (1991).


14/41

14

exceptionless laws of nature governing the motion of matter as a form of reason in the

worldbut he will also argue that this is the leastcomplete or absolute form of reason.

Still, for now I focus on the sense in which laws are at least one form: the laws are the

reason for the rotation of the planets; and this is just to say that their movements are

governed by laws. The point is not epistemicit is not that knowledge of laws is our

reason for believing or concluding that the planets rotate. Rather, the laws are a form

of governing or reason in nature. The same commitment is clear in Hegels rejection

of empiricism at the beginning of theEncyclopedia, which formulates and rejects the

approach I call humean, according to which universal notions, principles, and laws

(38) signify nothing over and above alterations that follow one after the other, and

objects that lie side by side (39).

Those who favor humeanism about laws might try to argue that the very idea of alaw of nature being a reason, or governing, is so unclear as to be meaningless. But

thinking in terms of Hegels interest in reasons of all forms reveals the objection as

powerless. For both sides in this debate are equally addressing an issue within the

metaphysics of reason: both sides have a position on what is a reason for what. The

humeans accept one form of reason in the worldthey hold that what actually happens

is the reasonwhy there are laws (if there are, because laws are just patterns or

regularities in what happens). Some recent humeans say specifically that it is in virtue

of what happens that there are laws;14 or, there is a form of ontological grounding

of laws by what happens, or a reduction of laws to what happens.15 These are all

proposed ways of understanding the sense in which what happens is supposed to be the

reason for the laws. An anti-humean, like Hegel, simply holds the reverse: in cases

where there are laws, like the rotation of the planets, the laws are the reason for those

happenings. So both sides are talking about reason, but they see different sorts of

reason-relation moving in opposite directions. Since both sides are talking about

different forms of the same general notion, humeans cannot object that their opponents

are too obscure.

14Loewer 1996, 102.

15Schaffer 2008, 83.


15/41

15

Granted, some today might wish to reject both sides in this debate, finding anti-

humean talk of governing and humean talk of ontological grounding bothtoo

obscureperhaps because neither is analyzable in terms of ordinary causality. But this

objection too is weak, because it assumes that causality itself is unproblematic, or

something not in need of more basic philosophical comprehension. It is however

obvious that there is philosophical debate about what causality is. And the debate is

similar to the debate about laws. There is, for example, a humean conception of

causality: for x to cause y is just for Xs and Ys to be constantly conjoined throughout

space and time. And there are anti-humeans about causality. And this is again a dispute

about reason: humeans hold that what happens is the reason why there is causality;

anti-humeans hold that, where there are causes, these are the reasons why things

happen as they do.What we are discovering, as we step through these debates, is the fundamentality

of the question of what is a reason for what. We need the basic and general notion of one

thing being a reason for another in order to engage any of these debates. And so we

should accept that notion as basic, and proceed to consider what specific forms of

reason there really are, which directions they run in different cases, and how they relate

to one another.

Further, these philosophical debates about reasons cannot be directly resolved by

the natural sciences. No matter which specific laws natural science might uncover, doing

so will not itself answer the underlying question about what it is to be a law, or the form

and direction of reason in terms of which lawhood is best understood. In addition, part

of what is at issue here is how different natural sciences relate to one another: are they

all seeking reasons in a similar sense, or in divergent senses? If divergent, then how do

these different reasons relate? Part of the aim of answering these questions within the

metaphysics of reasons is to rationally and systematically comprehend the natural

sciences themselves, the specific sorts of reasons they seek, and their relations. So

although the sciences seek forms specific of reason in the world, the metaphysics of

reason is distinguished from them in that it seeks to understand those forms of reason

and how they relate.

Those who prefer a semantics-first metaphilosophy might see all such issues about

laws, monism, causes, etc. as a series of technical issues in isolated or minor areas of


16/41

16

philosophyas merely issues in the philosophy of science, for example, peripheral to

the core concerns of philosophy with perspective-independence, knowledge, and

meaning. But my point here is just that there is an alternative way to look at it. When we

think in terms of the metaphysics of reason, we see rather a surprising thread linking

issues throughout metaphysics. Take the example of the humean views above: they all

stem from a wonderfully clear and incredibly comprehensive humean metaphysicsall

there is to reality, says the humean, is a series of disconnected events arranged in space

and time; this arrangement is the reason for everything there isfor laws, causality,

necessity, etc.it can all be explained in these same terms. As David Lewis formulates

the form of humeanism so important in recent analytic metaphysics, it is the doctrine

that all there is to the world is a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact, just one

little thing and then another (1986, ix).I think that Hegels basic aim is to defend a comparably comprehensive position

within the metaphysics of reasonalbeit one that is about as far away as you can get in

content and simplicity as compared to humeanism. The humean view finds the

fundamental at the bottom: the reason for everything real is found at the bottom, with

one little thing and then another. Hegels view will find the fundamental at the top,

although in a surprising sense. This will mean that the example of Hegels anti-humean

position on the lowest-level laws of nature is only an introductory example. Hegels view

is notthat the unalterable laws of nature are absolutely fundamental to everything. The

rotation of the solar system as an example of something governed by laws of nature. But

this does not mean that Hegel sees everything as so governed. Hegel will argue that the

behavior of living beings, for example, is teleological, and not governed by exceptionless

laws.16 And Hegel will argue that the laws of nature are only a very limited, incomplete,

or minimal form of reason for the events they govern; teleological reasons for the

behavior of living beings will turn out to be a more complete form of reasoncloser to

the absolute. And it is not life but rather Geistor spirit that will turn out to manifest

the most complete or absolute form of reason of all. So the laws of nature will turn out to

be relatively less important in Hegels philosophy, even if a good place to begin.

16I argue that he has a compelling case in Kreines (2008).


17/41

17

This is to say that Hegel will consider many different accounts of what is a reason

for what, in many different senses of a reason. This will include those metaphysicians

who think about reason as Grund (ground), in a sense that Hegel thinks inadequate.

Thus Hegel will complain about the way reason is generally understood by advocates of

the Satz des Grundes or principle of sufficient reason (WL 446/6:82). But what Hegel

thinks most important here are those aspects of Leibnizs use of the principle which

direct us rather toward a more complete form of reason, which he calls here

teleologicalground (teleologische Grund). Elsewhere Hegel uses Vernunft (reason)

to speak of reasons in the world, as when he says of the movement of the solar system

that the laws are its reason, or the Gesetze sind die Vernunft desselben (LPH

12:23/34). And we will see that the term Vernunftestablishes an important connection

to Kant. But these are in any case different ways of thinking about reasons. The forms ofindependence most important to Hegel, like what he calls Selbststndigkeit (self-

subsistence), do not concern at base independence of our point of viewthey rather

raise issues about whether something is an independent reason for itself; Hegel will

argue that this is a standard by which teleological phenomena will be of greater interest

in a metaphysics of reason than phenomena governed by exceptionless laws.

3. Kants Transcendental Dialectic Critique of the Metaphysics of Reason

I turn now to Kants critique of metaphysics in the Transcendental Dialectic of

the first Critique, so that we can later understand Hegels response. The thread running

throughout this section is Kants account of the faculty of reason (Vernunft). The basic

idea here is that truth is too profligate to serve as any kind of guiding goal for theoretical

or rational inquiry. For there are innumerable truths about any number of things, many

of them trivial or of no special theoretical interestsuch as the exact number of cookies

in each box of cookies, the exact distance in miles between the box and the Golden gate

bridge, and which of these numbers is higher. The faculty of the understanding is

capable of coming to true judgments about what is the case in the empirical world; but

the understanding nonetheless requires guidance from some more discriminating norm

or goal, and it is the faculty of reason that provides the guidance. Because reasons role

is to guide, Kant must characterize reason in terms of an aim or end (Zweck) or even


18/41

18

an interest (Interesse). And one way of expressing the goal of reason is to say that we

are interested, insofar as we are rational, in underlying grounds or conditions of all

kinds, or in following a regress from the conditioned to its condition (A523/B521).

But Kant exposes difficulties by arguing that this last idea about conditions is not

yet an adequate characterization of a guiding aim of the faculty of reason. In a way,

conditions threaten to be still too profligate to guide. Imagine for example that we know

of some X that is conditioned; if so, the faculty of reason will leave us unsatisfied and

interested in the underlying condition. But what if the underlying condition, Y, is also

something merely conditioned? Then the same dissatisfaction of reason will persist. So

there are many conditions that do not in themselves satisfy reasons interest. Theoretical

inquiry is concerned in conditions only insofar as we assume that, in finding conditions,

we are making some progress toward knowledge of an underlying or unifyingcompletion in the series of conditions, or a complete reasonprogress toward what Kant

calls the unconditioned. And so Kant argues that, if we find the condition for

something, reason requires that the condition of its condition thereby has to be

sought; thus:

we see very well that the proper principle of reason in general (in its logicaluse) is to find the unconditioned for conditioned cognitions of theunderstanding, with which its unity will be completed. (A307/B364)

Another way of putting this point is to say that reason seeks complete unity, or a unified

underlying complete explanation. And this is the goal or norm by which reason provides

the guidance needed by the understanding: the law of reason to seek unity is necessary,

since without it we would have no reason, and without that, no coherent use of the

understanding (A651/B679).

It is worth noting an example crucial to the Transcendental Analytic, insofar as it

is the topic of the Second Antinomy: the understanding might achieve knowledge of an

object extended in space; reason will then take an interest in why it fills this volume of

space, or the underlying conditions in the sense of the parts. Note that this isnotthe

question of the epistemic reason how we know that or whether the object is extended.

The question about underlying conditions (Bedingungen) here is a about why the object


19/41

19

fills that space.17 The idea of the unconditioned, then, is notany epistemic idea, such

as the idea of something knowable with absolute certainty; to say that we seek

knowledge of the unconditioned is not to say that we seek something under any

particular epistemic description. Nor is it fundamentally the idea of something

independent of our perspective, or the idea of something knowable only from a Gods-

eye view. It is the idea of a complete reason why.

But Kant is aiming to further argue that we cannot ever attain knowledge of

anything unconditioned. Compare: I might be seeking a good espresso in Nevada, when

it turns out that it is not possible to find a good espresso in Nevada; this is not to say

that I am seeking something under the description ofthe unfindable. Similarly, Kant

holds that we seek the aim of theoretical inquiry under the description ofthe

unconditioned, or the complete reason whynot under the an epistemic description

like the absolutely perspective-independent, or the knowable with absolute certainty,

or how things appear from Gods point of view, etc. But it turns out, Kant will argue,

that what we seek under the non-epistemic description is in fact unknowable for us, and

would be knowable only for an intellect superior in kind. Thus Kant begins the A-preface

to the Critiquewith the resulting tension between reasons interest and the limits of our

knowledge:

Human reason has the peculiar fate in one species of its cognitions that it isburdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, since they are given to it asproblems by the nature of reason itself, but which it also cannot answer, sincethey transcend every capacity of human reason

Our attempts to answer these questions cannot be conclusive, and so we fall into endless

controversies. And this is metaphysics: [t]he battlefield of these endless controversies is

called metaphysics (Avii-viii). Note that metaphysics in this sense has nothing

fundamentally to do with absolute perspective-independence, nor with any idea of a

Gods-eye view. Metaphysics, in thissense is concerned fundamentally with the

complete reasons for things, or the unconditioned. It is only on grounds of a further

argument that our form of cognition cannot achieve knowledge of anything

17Later, we will see that Hegel criticizes this approach, arguing that there are kinds of conditions which are no

genuine sort of reason at all, so that an absolute form of reason need not involve being unconditioned.


20/41

20

unconditioned that the derivative result will follow: metaphysics amounts to an interest

in something (the unconditioned) that is unknowable from our point of view.

The resulting problem will be this: We seek insofar as we are rational or reasonable

to reach conclusions concerning the unconditioned. But, on the face of it, our choices

with respect to the existence of unconditioned grounds are that they exist or that they do

not. And Kant argues that holding either view is unacceptable.

Consider first the affirmation. Kant argues that we are naturally tempted by it.

That is, we are naturally tempted to mistake the maxims or rules guiding reason for

objective principles: In our reason there lie fundamental rules and maxims for its

use, which look entirely like objective principles (A297/B353). So given reasons

demand that we seek the unconditioned, we are tempted to affirm this further principle:

there must always be unconditioned grounds for everything conditioned. This isessentially the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) of the early modern rationalists.

The idea is that everything not a sufficient ground or reason of itselfeverything

conditionedmust have an external sufficient or complete ground or reason, or an

unconditioned ground. Rationalism, in the sense I will use it, is not fundamentally a

position in epistemology. Rather, rationalism is any view in metaphysics that endorses a

PSR and argues on that basis for the existence of God in this sense of a sufficient

reason for everything.

18

But note that Spinoza is a paradigmatic rationalisthe employsthe PSR in arguing for his God atEthics IP11D. But of course his God is not something

separate from the rest of reality, but the single substance that everything real is in.

This is irrelevant to his status as a paradigmatic rationalist (in my sense here): he argues

from a PSR to the existence of an unconditioned ground of everything, or God in that

sense.

Kants response to rationalism is subtle. On the one hand, the interest of our

faculty of reason leaves us naturally tempted by rationalism. For example, consider the

rationalist arguments for God, in the rationalist sense of that the concept of which

contains within itself the Because to every Why? that which is in all ways sufficient

18Compare Curley: Prospects for identifying a common rationalist programme are better in metaphysics. One

doctrine Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz did agree on was what Leibniz was to call the principle of sufficientreason (1995, 430).


21/41

21

as a condition. Kant holds that reason itself makes this rationalist argument tempting:

this is even the natural course taken by every human reason (A584-5/B612-3). On the

other hand, the Transcendental Dialectic argues that we must learn to avoid asserting

theoretical knowledge of such rationalist conclusions.

The problem with rationalism is supposed to be this: it must either contradict

itself, or else come to depend on an untenable combination of epistemological claims.

The threatened self-contradictions are developed in the first two Antinomies. The

contradictions arise from a specifically rationalist line of argument, whose major

premise is that there must be completion or sufficiency in a series of conditions: The

entire antinomy of pure reason rests on this dialectical argument: If the conditioned is

given, then the whole series of all conditions for it is also given; now objects of the

senses are given as conditioned; consequently, etc.19 The problem arises specifically

with respect to a regress of conditions in time (the first Antinomy) or space (the second).

It is best, for the purpose of understanding Hegels response, to briefly sketch the

second Antinomy.

First, imagine accepting what I will call Assumption A: beginning with an object

extended in space, there is an infinite regress to smaller parts. But a rationalist must

insist that there is a sufficient reason why there can be any composition here at all. And

the only way to find such a reason within the regresswould be to hold that there aresmallest, simplest parts which explain why there is anything here out of which things

could be composed.20 So a rationalist looking for completeness within the regress must

reject the Assumption A and instead endorse smallest spatial parts.

Second, we can try Assumption not-A: there are such smallest parts in space. If

they occupy some region of space, then the rationalist must insist that there is a

sufficient reason why they occupy that region. Within the regress in space, the only

thing that could provide such a reason would be smaller parts which, conjoined, occupy

that region. So for any simple or indivisible part in space, the rationalist must hold that

19A497/B525. In emphasizing this passage and my approach to the Transcendental Dialectic here, I am

following Grier (2001).

20By the assumption, there would be no simple part, thus nothing at all would be left over; consequently, no

substance would be given (A434/B462).


22/41

22

there are underlying partswhich is a contradiction.21 And so the rationalist must

reject the Assumption not-A, and hold instead that the regress to smaller parts extends

infinitely down.

But it is important that there is a popular way for the rationalist to escape

contradiction. He can say that there is another optionunlike both smallest parts and

infinite descent into compositionspecifically insofar as the sufficient reasons for things

might be comprehensible and knowable only by a divine intellect. What God would be

able to comprehend is how there could be an infinite regress of conditions,and then

also, outside of the infinite regress, an underlying sufficient condition for all of them.

For God need not follow a regress one step at a time; Leibniz holds that God could grasp

even an infinite series all at once: there is always, underneath, a reason even if it is

perfectly understood only by God, who alone goes through an infinite series in one act of

the mind (Ariew and Garber, 303). Applying this escape strategy specifically to the

regress in space, we get this view: insofar as complete reasons might be such as to be

comprehended only by God, there could be an infinite regress of smaller parts in space,

which also has a ground or reason from outside itself in the form of non-extended

monads.22

But Kant will respond that the rationalist escape route requires both affirming and

denying oneself the possibility of knowledge of the same thing. It is not that Kant thinkswe are entirely unable to comprehend the idea of an intellect able to grasp immediately

even an infinity of everythingthis is a central feature of what Kant calls intellectual

intuition, which would grasp and present the object immediately and all at once

(8:389). But if the rationalist speaks of sufficient reasons knowable only by such an

intellect, superior in kind to our own, then Kant argues that the right conclusion is that

we cannot know anything about themnot even whether there exists any such thing. Of

course, there is a difference between knowing that something exists and knowing more

about it; but Kant argues that if the latter requires divine knowledge, then there is no

21the simple would be a substantial composite, which contradicts itself (A435/B463)

22Or, similarly, Spinoza can take the analogous escape route, holding that there is an infinite regress within

space and timeand then also add that the whole series is grounded insofar as it is in and so dependent onone substance or God.


23/41

23

principled reason why the former should not as well. For example, Kant complains that

those who defend Leibnizian monads would have us be able to cognize things, thus

intuit them, even without senses, consequently they would have it that we have a faculty

of cognition entirely distinct from the human not merely in degree but even in intuition

and kind, possessed by not by humans but beings that we cannot even say are

possible, let alone how they are constituted (A277-8/B333-4).

Note that this criticism need not rely on commitments from Kants specific claims

about the limits of our cognition, its discursivity, etc. There is rather here an

independent line of argument, which will offer supportfor Kants specific claims about

our epistemic limitations. The point about rationalists is that theybox themselves into

an untenable epistemic position: they can escape from the contradictions of the

Antinomies only by claiming that reality is such as to be knowable only by a divinemind; but this involves claiming to know something while also claiming it is

unknowable.

Now to this point I have commented only on Kants critique ofrationalist

metaphysics. But the Transcendental Dialectic is not just developing a worry about

rationalist metaphysics; it is developing a worry about metaphysics more generally. It

presents a problem that is supposed to affect everyone, not just the rationalist. The root

of the problem is that we needthe faculty of reason, and its guidance by means of ideas

of the unconditioned, if we are to pursue any theoretical inquiry at all, and even if there

is to be any coherent use of the understanding (A651/B679). We cannot rationally

hold that there are no unconditioned grounds while also trying to discover somewhich

is to say, while still engaging in any theoretical inquiry at all. So the denial leads to the

skeptical renunciation of the project of reason or theoretical inquiry, theeuthanasia of

pure reason, or skeptical hopelessness (A407/B433-4).

A quick way to get a glimpse of the point is to consider a famous scene in Molire:

the character Argan is asked why opium interacts with us by putting us to sleep. And

Argan responds, famously, that opium has a dormitive virtue or power. Of course, we

now know better. We know what opium is made of, and why it does what it does. But

consider the farthest point to which we have advanced in the regress of powers or

dispositions. Say we find, at the limit of our current knowledge, particles X and Y, where

Xs attract Ys. We might still ask why do Xs attract Ys? A contemporary Argan would


24/41

24

say: on account of their attractive power. But is it rational to take this answer for any

sort ofconclusion?Kant would deny it. And he would explain his answer in this way:

reason demands that we assume, at least for the sake of inquiry, that there is something

more complete to be said in answer to the why-question. And reason demands that we

inquire into what that more complete explanation might be. True, one could conceivably

deny that there is anything more satisfying. But then one has no grounds left for saying

that reason favors further inquiry over Argans self-satisfaction or utter lack of

intellectual curiosity. And thatis skeptical hopelessness.

While I think that there is more to say in defense of this last point, this will have to

wait for another occasion. For our purposes, the important point is that Kants

Dialectic aims to present a seemingly insoluble problem for everyone. We can affirm

or deny rationalism, but thisleads reason into the temptation either to surrender itself to a skepticalhopelessness or else to assume the attitude of a dogmatic stubbornnessEither alternative is the death of a healthy philosophy though the former mightalso be called the euthanasia of pure reason. (A407/B433-4)

Now Kant raises this problem in order to argue that there is one acceptable

alternative, and only onesomething he thinks is new and radical. We must conclude

that our own knowledge is fundamentally limited or restricted. More specifically, we

must conclude that there are specific, principled limits of our knowledgelimits that

will preclude knowledge of whether or not there is anything unconditioned, so that we

can continue to be guided by ideas of the unconditioned without threat of the rationalist

conclusion that we can know any such thing (thus precluding further theoretical

inquiry) and without threat of the denial that there is any such thing (thus rendering

further inquiry without reason of guidance). What compelling account of our knowledge

would leave it limited in principle, in just this way? Kants answer is that our

understanding is merely discursive, or dependent for content on intuitions from a

receptive faculty of sensibility, and so also dependent on the a prioriforms of our

sensibility: space and time. And in sensibility, i.e. in space and time, every condition to

which we can attain in the exposition of given appearances is in turn conditioned

(A508/B536). This account of our limitations gains support in this way: it provides a

principled reason for denying knowledge of anything unconditioned, including


25/41

25

knowledge of whether or not there is anything unconditioned, thus explaining why the

threat of the Antinomy does not justify complete skeptical hopelessness.

Precisely this limitation of knowledge is what will allow Kant to hold that we can

and must always assume, for the sake of inquiry, that there are unconditioned grounds

and then seek them in inquiry.23 So reason demands that we pursue the unconditioned

as an end, a goal; and reason provides perfectly legitimate regulative orguiding

principles; but we must learn not to mistake this for knowledge of anything

unconditioned. We can thereby at least make progress asymptotically (A663/B691) as

Kant says at one point, toward the goal of reason that guides scientific inquiry. And thus

Kant claims to avoid the skeptical hopelessness, or the euthanasia of pure reason,

but without slipping back into the dogmatism of rationalist assertions.

This line of argument for the limitation of our knowledge is clear to see in Kants

own gloss of the argument of the Transcendental Dialectic. Kant says:

That which necessarily drives us to go beyond the boundaries of experience andall appearances is the unconditioned, which reason necessarily and with everyright demands (Bxx)

True, we cannot know that there really is anything unconditioned. But precisely because

we still must conceive the unconditioned as a goal, we must conceive of it as

unknowable, as present in things as things in themselves. Otherwise, the

unconditioned cannot be thought at all without contradiction (Bxx). So the threat of

contradiction concerning the unconditioned forces us to distinguish the objects of our

knowledge from things as they are in themselves, and conclude that our knowledge is

merely limited or restricted.

It follows that there is a sense in which metaphysics is impossible for us. Recall

that reason gives rise to endless controversies on the battlefield called

metaphysics (Aviii). If reasonis responsible, then these are controversies about the

unconditioned. The Dialectic arguments supports the conclusion that such metaphysicsis impossible for us: we cannot legitimately assert knowledge of any conclusion about

this topic. But this is not to say we can or should forget these controversies: Kant says

23On the need to assume, for the sake of inquiry, that there is something unconditioned, although we cannot

have knowledge, see e.g. A307-8/B364.


26/41

26

just here that reason cannot dismiss(Avii) those metaphysical questions. He later says

that we will always return to metaphysics as to a beloved from whom we have been

estranged (A850/B878). True, some philosophers think that they have become

indifferent to such metaphysics, but Kant sees them as unknowingly entangled in

metaphysics: they always unavoidably fall back into metaphysical assertions, which

they yet professed so much to despise (Ax). So the point is not that metaphysics stems

from an optional or misguided interest in knowing things from a Gods eye point of

view. It stems from a rational, legitimate, an ineliminable interest in the unconditioned

or complete reasons; and we must keep in mind that inescapable interest, precisely in

order to guard against mistakenly thinking that we can attain theoretical knowledge that

would satisfy it.

4. Hegels Non-Rationalist, Post-Kantian Metaphysics of Reason

When we turn back to Hegel, we now have a choice. We need not read Hegel as if

his basic goal were to defend one or another approach to explaining the possibility of

knowledge and or meaning. So we need not take the basic orienting question to be

whether Hegel is more of a realist or anti-realist about that matter. We can instead read

Hegel as interested fundamentally in the issues raised by Kants Transcendental

Dialectic critique of the metaphysics of reason. So the basic orienting question would behow Hegels view relates to the options Kant distinguishes there: the rationalist

affirmation of the existence of unconditioned grounds, the denial of the same which

Kant labels skeptical hopelessness, and Kants limitation of our knowledge. Does Hegel

go for one of these options, or develop some other response to thissame set of issues?

This orienting question makes it easy to see that traditional metaphysical readings,

although not always explicit about it, tend to portray Hegel as holding a version of

precisely the metaphysical rationalism targeted by Kant. For they portray Hegel as

arguing on the basis of an assumption that everything must be completely explicable, so

that there must be some complete reason for everything; such readings often take Hegel

as accepting Spinozas claim that the whole of everything is a ground of everything, and

then modifying Spinozas account of that whole. But that would be to say that Hegel


27/41

27

merely assumes a principle that Kant has argued against, rather than engaging

philosophically with Kants critique of metaphysics.

My aim here is to show how the a metaphysics of reason approach makes possible

an alternative readingone which Hegel is not arguing for a return to specific

metaphysical view specifically attacked by Kant. The idea is that Hegel follows Kants

rejections of various basic options: Hegel agrees that problems concerning complete or

absolute reasons are inescapable, so philosophers cannot claim to be indifferent to

them; Hegel agrees in rejecting rationalism, or the claim that complete or absolute

reasons would be something unconditioned, and that there must really be something

unconditioned; Hegel also agrees that rejection of the existence of any sort of complete

or absolute reasons would be an unacceptable form of skeptical hopelesness. But all

this agreement does not mean that Hegel accepts Kants limitation of our knowledge anddenial of the possibility of our reaching conclusions in metaphysics. Rather, Hegel

argues that Kant sees only these options because he views the matter in part from the

perspective of the aimso important to earlier section of the first Critiqueof defending

the faculty of the understanding. So Hegel will argue that, if we begin with Kants own

account of reason, and re-work philosophy from this perspective, then we can build a

new kind of metaphysicsone that finds a new way to avoid both rationalism and yet

also skeptical hopelessness. In particular, Hegel will argue that complete or absolute

reasons should not be understood as the sort of unconditioned grounds which

rationalists think are real, and which Kant thinks are legitimately of interest to reason.

Once we better understand completeness or absoluteness of reasons, we will be able to

legitimately assert knowledge of them, without asserting rationalism.

To see the break between Hegel and rationalism, consider Hegels account of law-

governed natural phenomena, as for example in theLogic discussion of natural kinds of

things that are linked by exceptionless lawswhich Hegel calls Chemism, emphasizing

that he is not just talking about chemistry but lawfully interacting kinds of any sort.24

Here Hegel argues that the nature of such a lawfully interacting thing is such that it

cannot be comprehended except in relation to others. As Hegel says, a chemical object

24WL 6:429/727.


28/41

28

is not comprehensible from itself alone, and the being of one is the being of the other

(WL 6:430/728). What is it to be some law-governed X? It is to react in a specific

manners with Ys, etc. And, further, to be Y will be to interact in characteristic ways with

Zs and Xs. Etc. So the being of things of such kinds will depend ona whole

interconnected network of kinds and laws within which that are a part, or the network

within which they are nodes. For law-governed stuff, the determinateness of anything

in particular is just one moment of a larger whole or Begriffof the whole: it is the

concrete moment of the individual concept (Begriff) of the whole, which conceptis the

universal essence, the real kind(Gattung) of the particular object (WL 6:430/728).

The philosophical pressure towards this kind of metaphysical holism has often

been noted in more recent metaphysics, even while holism is often resisted. For

example, take Russell:There are many possible ways of turning some things hitherto regarded asreal into mere laws concerning the other things. Obviously there must be alimit to this process, or else all the things in the world will merely be eachother's washing (1927, 325)

And Chalmers aims to resist the same holism: this would lead, he says, to a

strangely insubstantial view of the physical world (1996, 153).

In Chalmers and Russell, the aim of finding more substance in things pushes in the

general direction of the view that physical reality is, in itself, mental or somehow akin to

the mental. Chalmers reads Russell as attracted to the view that the intrinsic properties

of the physical are themselves a variety of phenomenal property. And Chalmers

considers protophenomenal properties (1996, 154). Kant reads Leibnizians as arguing

in a similar manner: if there must be non-relational inner features of things, then what

can I think of as inner accidents except for those which my inner sense offers me? -

namely that which is either itself thinking or which is analogous to one (A265-6/B321-

2). A more monistic form of rationalism would seek to dispel the seeming lack of

substance by finding an unconditioned ground in the whole of all such interconnected

kindswe could also take the whole to be a mind or something similar.

But none of these is Hegels view. Hegels view is that, when we look to grasp a law-

governed thing, it gets lost in relations, lost in a regress of dependence; it becomes

something else than it is empirically, confuses cognition (Phn 3:190/149). Hegels


29/41

29

view is that lawfully governed things really are strangely insubstantial (as Chalmers

puts it). Another way to put the point is to say that, when we look to lawful things, we

find only the slightest ofreasons for what they do at all. True, the laws are the reason

why things do what they do. But the laws are as they are on account of the relational

natures of such things. Which is to say that the natures of things are as they are on

account of the laws, and the laws on account of the natures, and so on. The regress into

relationality results in surprisingly insubstantial reasons.

Hegels anti-rationalist view is clearest where he discusses the weakness or

powerlessness (Ohnmacht)(e.g. PN 248) or a degree of unreason (Unvernunft)

(e.g. PN 250) in nature. Lowest-level law-governed things are weak insofar as they lack

a complete or sufficient reason for why they do what they do. They falsify the PSR that is

definitive of rationalism. And the point is not that we tend to mistakenly take lawfulnature to be weak or unreasonable because we tend to overlook some hidden inner side,

like hidden mental grounds in physical particles or in the whole of everything. Rather,

lawful nature really isthis weakness, or really this degree of unreason. For example, the

lack of complete reason is a kind of contingency in the law-governed kinds or forms:

In the sphere of nature contingency and determination from without has itsright, and this contingency is at its greatest in the realm of concrete individualforms, which however, as products of nature, are concrete only in an immediatemanner This is the powerlessness of nature. (PN250)

Hegel will later argue that in some cases, there is a remedy for this lack of

substance and reason. In particular, some of the sum total of all the lawfully interacting

stuff finds itself part of different living beingslions, tigers, trees, and you and I. When

we look to these higher-level beings, we find some of the substance that had gone

missing in lower-level lawful nature. Take a tiger, for example. Why does the tiger have

these sharp claws and the corresponding capacities to catch and kill rabbits? Here we do

not get lost in a regress of dependence. The answer is not that rabbits have a

disposition to be caught, and so on. For the tiger has these parts and capacities on

account ofsomething about the tiger itself: an account of the intrinsic end or goal of

self-preservation. As Hegel says, the living thing is articulated purposefully; all its


30/41

30

members serve only as means to the one end of self-preservation.25 This intrinsic end

orZweck is supposed to allow the nature of an organism to be manifest in the

determinate way that it relates to the environment, yet without its nature merely

dissolving into relations with others. An organism is the real end orZweck itself it

preserves itself in the relation to an other (Phn 156). This is supposed to make life a

more complete form of reason, specifically as compared to lawfully governed lower-level

things. Or, alternatively, a living being is more substantialprecisely in the sense that

lawfully interacting things are strangely insubstantial.

What is really surprising here is that a living being will be more substantial, in the

above sense, than even the lower-level law-governed stuff of which it is composed. This

can seem surprising when judged from the perspective of what Kant calls the

understanding, from which we expect that if X supports Y, then X had better be more

solid than Y in order to hold it up, as it were. But Hegel is arguing that matters are

different once judged simply from the perspective of the interest in reasons, or the

reasons why things do what they do. A tiger, for example, could not exist without the

existence of the underlying stuff of which it is composed. But there is also a sense in

which the natures of the underlying stuff are a matter of indifference when it comes to

what it does. The tigers claw, for example, could have had the same capacities and yet

be realized in a variety of different underlying stuff.Note, then, how Hegels conception of a complete or absolute reason comes apart

from Kants conception of the unconditioned: an organism is, in a sense,conditionedby

or dependent on the stuff of which it is composed. But insofar as this is a conditioning

by something indifferent, this is no limitation of its status as a reason for its own

behavior. We can mark this distinction with terms drawn from Hegel: dependence on an

indifferent base26 makes no difference to the completeness of a form of reason. So to

manifest a complete or absolute form of reason need not mean depending on nothing

it need not mean being unconditioned in this sense. And, since a complete form of

25(VPA 13:193/1:145)

26For Hegels use of the term indifferent base, see for example the above discussion, from Chemism, of WL

6:430/728. I am coining the term principle of activity to contrast with this.


31/41

31

reason might depend in that way on something else, clearly a complete form of reason

need not be something on which everything else dependsit need not be some form of

the rationalists God. To be a complete or absolute form of reason is rather to be

something that does what it does on the basis of what we might call a complete and

internal principle of activity.27

Now organic life is supposed to be close to an absolute reason, in this sense, but

not the most complete form. Although there is no space to even sketch the argument

here, it is worth noting how Hegel puts the point in terms drawn from Kant: idea, in

Kant, refers to a conception of something of interest to the faculty of reason; so Kants

view is that the idea is always a conception of something unconditioned. Hegels view

is that life (even if not unconditioned) is a form of the idea, is more satisfying to

reason, although only a partial or incomplete form: the idea is firstly life (WL

6:468/760). But Hegel will argue that an absolutely complete intrinsic principle of

activity is realized only in the case of our own kind, or what Hegel callsGeistor spirit.

This is why Hegel will call Geistthe absolute: the absolute is spiritthis is the

supreme definition of the absolute (PG 384). Comparing life and spirit, then, the

former retains a smaller degree of the unreason of nature, and only the latter is a

complete or absolute form of reason, insofar as it is internally self-determining, or free

in this sense:The highest level to which nature attains is life; but this, as only a natural modeof the idea, is at the mercy of the unreason of externality whereas in everyexpression ofGeistthere is contained the moment of free, universal self-relation. (PN 248An)

We can know the absolute, in this sensewe can have absolute knowledgein that we

can know something with an absolutely intrinsic principle of activity, something that

realizes a complete form of reason: we can know and comprehend spirit. This need not

mean that there is a complete reason for everything. Nor need it mean that we can know

everythingfor there are many things without a sufficient reason, which are not

absolute. For example, if basic physical particles lack any complete or absolute reason

27See for example Hegels use of the term principle of activity in discussing Aristotles view of life (e.g. VGP

19:174).


32/41

32

for what they do, then knowledge of the absolute need not be any kind of complete

knowledge explaining the location and movement of every physical particle. Knowledge

of the absolute is knowledge of something with an absolutely internal principle of

activityknowledge of spirit.

The resulting metaphysics holds that reality has a hierarchical organization of

levels.28 Everything is composed of lower-level stuff, in which is found the most

incomplete form of reason. Some of that stuff makes up living beings, whose behavior

has more complete reason, or is more completely explicable. And some living beings

have capacities of knowing (especially important will be the capacity to know

themselves) and meaning, and behave in correspondingly distinct ways, because they

are of the kind Geist, and it is here that we are supposed to find a complete form of

reason.

Why doesnt Hegels view, insofar as it is neither rationalist nor Kants own denial

of knowledge, lead to the skeptical hopelessness Kant fears? First of all, Hegels view is

that rational inquiry does not and need not seek knowledge of the absolutely

unconditioned. For it need not have any interest in merely indifferent grounds. Rather,

rational inquiry seeks knowledge of the internal principles of things. Such inquiry can be

satisfied to increasingly greater degrees on the higher levels of reality. And even within

lawful nature inquiry can make a sort of progress insofar as we discover at least adistant, imperfect echo of the sort of independent principle of activity found on the

higher levels. For example, the whole network of kinds and laws within lawful nature is

a distant but imperfect echo of the sorts of biological wholes we find on higher levels. It

is comparable to, but not yet for itself that totality of self-determination (WL

6:434/731-2). So we can have some success in explaining nature insofar as we can find

more distant approximations of the idea throughout nature, even if these

approximations are in truth other than the idea. In Hegels terms, nature is the idea in

the form of otherness (247).

28For example, in introducing the PN, Hegel says that there are different orders of kinds, a hierarchical

structure of reality: the orders not only serve to give us a general view, but form a hierarchy (Stufenleiter) ofnature itself (PN 246Zu 9:20/10).


33/41

33

We can put the final combination of claims in this way: (i) Life approximates, but

onlyGeistor spirit completely realizes, a complete independent principle of activity, or a

complete manifestation of freedom and the idea. (ii) Metaphysically speaking,

nature does not depend on Geist, but Geistdoes depend on the nature in which it is

embodiedit presupposes nature. However, this is just dependence on an indifferent

basis, in the sense discussed above, so it is no limitation of the status ofGeistas a

complete form of reason, or as a manifestation of the idea. And (iii) speaking now

epistemologically, there is a kind of dependence of nature on Geist. In particular, the

explicability of nature depends on Geist: we seek to explain nature insofar as we find

there a distant trace of the kind of self-determining system or complete reason that is

fully realized only in the case of spiritso spirit finds, in this sense, traces of itself in

nature, we find the world to be ourworld, in this sense. I will insert numbers for thesepoints to note how Hegel wraps them all together:

(i) As Geistis free, its manifestation is to (iii) set forth Nature as itsworld; butbecause it is reflection, it, in thus setting forth its world, at the same time (ii)presupposes the world as a nature independently existing. (iii) In theintellectual sphere to reveal is thus to create a world as its being a being inwhich the mind procures the affirmation and (i) truth of its freedom. (384)

In this way metaphysics can deal with the problems Kant uncovers in the Dialectic.

True, the Second Antinomy shows that rationalists cannot accept there being only

compositionality all the way down; rationalists similarly could not accept the idea that

lawful nature is only relationality all the way down or around. But Hegel shows how to

construct a metaphysics that breaks with rationalism on this point, accepting an anti-

rationalist view, while avoiding the skeptically hopeless denial of the existence of

complete or absolute reason. The key is to argue that Kant and the rationalists

misunderstand what a complete form of reason would be: to be a complete form of

reason need not involve being a ground of everything, nor being unconditioned; a

complete form of reason would be rather something with an intrinsic principle ofactivity of its own. Thus Hegel can argue that there is an absolute form of reason

Geistwithout arguing that this is the sort of metaphysical ground of everything

envisaged by the rationalists. And Hegel can argue that we can know this absolute,

without having to somehow know everything or any supposedly complete explanation of

everything.


34/41

34

5. For the Metaphysics of Reason and Against Semantics-first Metaphilosophy

I have argued that there is an alternative to non-metaphysical, or semantics-

first interpretations of Hegel, which differ on matters philosophical rather than merely

verbal. Semantics-first interpreters sometimes argue that they have a trump card in that

they can best make sense of Hegels aim of engaging philosophically with Kants critique

of metaphysics; but my alternative can match this card, once sufficient attention is paid

to the Transcendental Dialectic. And once it is clear that there is a viable alternative,

we can easily see some advantages of this metaphysics of reason approach.

To sneak up on the more complex issues concerning Kant, it is helpful to start with

Hegels response to empiricist critiques of metaphysics. Empiricists will attack by

arguing that metaphysicians illegitimately take for granted the possibility of knowledge

in metaphysics. The attack is based on an epistemology-first metaphilosophy: it argues

that other projects in philosophy are subject to doubts about the possibility of

accounting for knowledge on such domains. But Hegel has a powerful response:

empiricists are in no position to complain that others merely take for granted knowledge

on a favored domain, because precisely in such attacks empiricists do the same: the

truth of the empirical, the truth of feeling and intuition is taken as basic (39An). The

skeptical worry that we should doubt any kind of knowledge that is supposedly basic

might be worrying for metaphysics, but only if it is equally worrying for empiricism aswell.Ifwe are to take such epistemological worries as fundamental, then the only

principled or philosophical position, Hegel argues here, would be the more total

skepticism of the ancient skeptics.

Further, Hegel argues that empiricists do not provide any alternative to

metaphysics. Just as Kant takes indifferentists to al

Last Kreines Metaphilosophy

Documents

Transcript of Last Kreines Metaphilosophy